Residents question response to ricin threat

e-mail this story Related Online extra • How do you think the Ricin matter has been handled by authorities?

Law enforcement wasn't called for almost 11 hours after ricin was discovered at the postal distribution center off Pelham Road that serves the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport, according to a reconstruction of events by officials to The Greenville News.

The deputy who responded to the call did not know what ricin was. It took almost another week before federal officials tested the vial, even though the package was clearly marked as containing ricin.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced earlier this year that ricin was a potential tool for terrorists. During the week's wait, the mail handling center continued to process 20,000 pieces of mail a day for distribution across the United States.

"The (postal) workers should have known immediately," said 25-year-old Melissa Perry of Greenville. "It makes you wonder what else has slipped through the cracks."

Bioterrorism experts across the United States told The News the incident should serve as an uncomfortable training event that underscores the need for better and quicker communication and action. The half-dozen local, state and federal agencies involved in last week's events, however, deny suggestions that anything was mishandled.

Residents said they see plenty of room for improvement.

Nikki Mosely said the fact that it took a week to test the sample was unbelievable and even more so that the public was not told for a week that there might be poison in the mail system.

"With everything going on in this nation right now, the public should be told of these things as soon as possible," she said.

Joseph Reed, a valet at the Westin Poinsett Hotel, said the government might have had a reason not to tell the public but he said he couldn't excuse the fact that it took six days for the sample to get to the federal government for testing.

"I think that's ridiculous," said Reed.

U.S. 4th District Rep. Jim DeMint questioned the amount of time it took to send samples to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and whether the state has the equipment it needs.

"Do we have the lab technology to determine threats in the state as quickly as we can?" he asked. "Should this have gone to CDC first? We'll find out about all of that and find out if there are ways to improve it."

Official notification

Jeffrey Pommerville, a microbiologist at Glendale Community College in Arizona who has lectured and led seminars nationwide on bioterrorism, said postal officials should have been notified within minutes and the package sent to the federal health agency within 24 hours.

"There is this problem in the system still of getting people to realize that this isn't right and I need to report it and not worry about getting my hand slapped for overreacting," he said.

Harris Pastides, a University of South Carolina epidemiologist and dean of the Arnold School of Public Health, called the ricin incident "an unfortunate way to practice."

"Clearly, we're not where we should be," he said.

Susan Cutter, a geography professor at the University of South Carolina who directs the university's Hazards Research Lab, said that the nation's system for dealing with terrorist-type incidents is a work in progress.

"The systems are not as in place as people actually think they are," she said. "I think what you saw with the ricin incident were things not being as well-coordinated as they could be."

Officials with the Greenville County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the State Law Enforcement Division — all of whom handled the package — said they acted appropriately.

Agency cooperation

James K. Schweitzer, the FBI's special agent in charge for South Carolina, said the level of cooperation among agencies was "outstanding."

"The procedures that were implemented from the time the package was found to the time it was determined exactly what the container had in it were designed to protect the public, the public's welfare and the public's health," he said.

Greenville County Sheriff Steve Loftis said while the deputy who was sent to the postal center was not trained in the handling of hazardous materials, another who was trained arrived later and packaged the poison for transport.

The incident was not international terrorism but apparently the work of a trucker upset with new regulations on sleep time. Therefore, it was technically not a matter for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, officials said. No arrests have been made.

Nevertheless, Larry Jackson, spokesman for the agency, said the department will review how authorities handled the incident "once things die down."

DeMint said Homeland Security officials always work to improve response.

"I'm sure we've got a lot to learn and improve," he said. "I certainly want to know if there's anything we could have done better on the state level, if there's anything the postal system can do to protect their employees that they're not doing."

A postal worker discovered the package about 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 15 but did not tell a supervisor until 8 a.m. The Greenville County Sheriff's office was called at 1:30 p.m. A deputy took the package and transferred it to an FBI agent somewhere between Greenville and Columbia, authorities said. FBI agents are part of South Carolina's Joint Terrorism Task Force, which is investigating.

The package was examined at SLED.

The next day, it was sent to the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, which contacted the CDC and tested the poison to see if it was something else.

DHEC, like most states at the time, did not have its own test for ricin. The federal health agency asked DHEC to send the samples Oct. 20, DHEC spokesman Thom Berry said.

"We had no information that anyone associated with the facility was having any health effects," he said. "If there had been any evidence, we would have immediately gotten the vial to Atlanta."

Samples were sent to the CDC, officials said, and the CDC identified the poison on Oct. 21.

The public and many other emergency agencies were told about the incident the next afternoon.

Spartanburg resident Joey Terrill, 31, said the details of the investigation troubled him, especially given the lethal nature of ricin. The downtown worker said he thought not telling other agencies was a serious oversight.

"Time is life," he said. "It's a total lack of responsibility. They should have contacted everybody immediately."

Postal service review

Gerald McKiernan, spokesman for the Postal Service, said officials are reviewing what happened. He said the postal system's procedures for finding something dangerous in the mail are to "isolate, identify and, if need be, to evacuate."

"I think we isolated it," he said. "We asked a specialist to identify it. And once it was identified, we evacuated."

McKiernan did not know whether the postal worker knew what ricin was.

Will Folks, spokesman for Gov. Mark Sanford, said the governor believes proper procedures were followed by state agencies. He declined to comment on the initial delay.

"Within 12 hours, the FBI was in charge of the investigation and directed our state law enforcement and health officials as to the protocols," he said. "As for what our health officials and law enforcement did, they followed these national protocols and the governor is not going to second-guess those."

U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president, called for the General Accounting Office to investigate whether the incident was handled properly.

State Law Enforcement Chief Robert Stewart, who also heads the state's terrorism defense efforts, said he could not go into detail about what happened with the package after it was turned over by the sheriff's deputy.

But he said SLED handled the matter properly.

"We followed the protocols and nationally recognized procedures," he said.

Deputy transport

Jay Hetherington, who teaches terrorism and emergency response at Clemson University and worked for the CIA for 33 years, said the package should not have been transported by a deputy in a squad car but by those who work with hazardous materials.

Hetherington also said he believes handling the state's terrorism defense is too big a job to be administered by someone such as Stewart, who already has the responsibility of running SLED.

He said, "It's just my concern that's not a second-level job. It's needs a full-time person."

Folks said the governor's choice of the SLED chief to lead all counterterrorism efforts "has received nothing but praise" from those on the first line of defense of emergencies and law enforcement.

Dr. Marguerite Neill, who teaches medicine and chairs a bioterrorism panel for the national Infectious Disease Society, said the nation's system for responding to incidents like the ricin package has improved dramatically in the past five years but coordination "is still a work in progress." She said it will take the nation "a very long time" to be where it needs to be.

Pastides, the USC epidemiologist, said the ricin incident was a "glass is half full, half empty" story. Law enforcement and public health agencies now talk to each other in preparation for such incidents and many officials have been trained in how to respond to bioterrorism. But he said many professionals have not been trained and the system does not practice for such emergencies.

"If the very same thing happened again, we will do better," he said. "The problem is, it's not going to be the very same thing."